1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera for stereoscopic photography having a plurality of lenses arranged in a line in the transverse direction (horizontal direction) and, more specifically, one changeable from a stereoscopic mode to a normal mode and vice versa.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Stereoscopic photography utilizing a lenticular screen is known. To prepare this type of stereoscopic photograph, it is necessary to obtain a plurality of images with different parallaxes to an object. For this purpose, stereoscopic cameras having a plurality of lenses are used.
Conventional stereoscopic cameras comprise a plurality of lenses, for example 3 to 5 lenses, which are arranged on the camera body such that their optical axes run parallel with each other and in the same plane with a constant pitch and that, upon photographing, image-forming lights passing therethrough will be incident on the film surfaces positioned perpendicularly to the optical axes.
Photographing with this type of stereoscopic camera records a plurality of images on the film surfaces at positions corresponding to the lenses, with the images being transversely shifted from each other due to the difference in the transverse (horizontal) positions of the lenses. "Transversely" herein means in a direction parallel to the straight line along which the lenses are arranged.
However, conventional stereoscopic cameras are capable of taking only stereoscopic photographs, and cannot take normal photographs which are not stereoscopic, thereby creating several disadvantages. For example, when one wants to take normal photographs as well as stereographic photographs, he should carry a normal camera in addition to a stereoscopic camera. Furthermore, once he has mounted film in his stereoscopic camera, he should continue taking stereoscopic photographs until the film ends.